Human Gene Editing

eli5: what can we potentially do in the near and long term with this technology? play god?

Yes clearly that is what the article author is suggesting. However, this core concept, that humans should / will start genetically engineering ourselves, needs much more discussion and thought before being charged ahead into. Because remember, its not so easy to unshit the bed once genetic material is released into the world. For instance, farmed fish that are cloned as well as gmo corn have been shown to reproduce with native species, forever changing the population. The ethics of doing such a

Not the OP, but I think there are ethical concerns about genetic manipulation that do not amount to catastrophizing (e.g. 20th century eugenics is back!).

This is editing the genome to be smarter, not sterilizing stupid people.

Helping people with severe diseases is still far away from creating the perfect humans.You turning this positive into a negative is distasteful.

We can modify the human genome now, how is that not an order of magnitude more impressive?

"you would be changing what it means to be human"Yet not dealing with genetics or brain implants. What a sales-lier.

With a bit of genetic engineering though...

I think yes.On a human level, we experiment and modify our biology constantly, eg vaccines and working out.On a humanity level, we're researching gene editing and gene therapy, and historically had appalling theories that led to genocide, which, in its roots, was about changing humanity's fundamental code.Proving gene editing is currently slow and expensive so it takes a long time gain confidence in result to make such a change.

I'm more concerned about the possible negative unintended consequences of making it available to everyone first. Genetic modification is well-explored Pandora's Box in science fiction and present humanity seems so ill-equipped in collective philosophy and reason to handle a paradigm shift of that magnitude.